does major GPA factor more than cumulative in internship applications?

Sam

There's an internship for English majors. My GPA is bad (not failing bad but bad) at this point but my English department GPA is 3.4 which isn't great but isn't shabby either. I'm wondering if I should bother applying, because the application involves writing 2 papers, which if not grade related I'd rather not do without reason right when school starts

Simon Moon

I have no idea how this works for English majors, but in general, internships are the best way to give yourself an edge in finding a job after you graduate. You pick up work experience, you make contacts, and you have something to put on your resume other than that summer you worked as a night-stocker at Lowe's, or your work-study position in a little-used computer lab.

i.e. Yes, you should apply anyway. If there's a part of the application that allows you to make comments about yourself, use it to point out that your major GPA is much higher than your cumulative.

big l

It depends. Are the internship tasks specifically related to the English field (grading English papers)? Then they probably care more about your English GPA. Do the tasks have little to do with your knowledge you got in your English classes (office bitch)? Then they probably don't care as much about your specific English GPA and will look at the overall.

In either case, I'm sure that the quality of the papers will be much more important than either GPA.

Pulvaan

Hah, I'm applying to medical school right now and I'm in the same boat.

If my experiences can extend to this field, then it depends. More often than not they put more weight on the grades that matter to them - for med schools the relevant coursework was biology, chemistry, physics, and other upper level classes. For this, I expect it to be the same - composition, literature classes, etc. With med school they also look for skills in other areas - language, humanities, other stuff. I don't know if this still applies to you.

If in doubt, you could always call the group offering the internship anonymously or talk to an adviser or student that would know about this sort of thing.

edit - what big said.

RUNN1NGMAN

Keep in mind also that if a internship is competitive enough that they're factoring GPAs in, someone with a higher cumulative GPA is going to win out. Even if their major GPA is lower than yours they may beat you out. Employers like to see consistency, and willingness to spend time on things that you don't find interesting. Internships involve a lot of grunt work, after all.